


Painters stroke of luck

by Selwyn111



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: High Chaos (Dishonored)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 15:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7273297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selwyn111/pseuds/Selwyn111
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delilah how did you crawl out of the fracken void? this is my interpretation of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painters stroke of luck

She felt the presence of someone else watching her work. More accurately she smelt him, ruin and bloodshed, or more commonly referred in the isles as Daud. Moving away from her alter calling upon her statues to truly come to life and aid her. 

She hears her statues cry out when called to life, it had appears that Daud had brought minions. 

"Daud, why won't you come and face me?" Delilah calls out as sounds of fighting erupt between her and the whalers. "This should be a fight between us, leave your failures out of it." 

She heard light footfalls behind her and turns drawing her blade knowing who was behind her. Daud, has his blade raised and poised to strike. "You narcissist," Daud says as he executes his first attack. "I may be a horrible person but a living death as a puppet is a step to far." Every other word he advances with a new strike while Delilah manages to block all of his attacks. 

She realizes that she is getting close to her alter, wondering if the idiot thought he could remove her or anything of value in one single swing. "You think it would be easy Daud?" She rolls to the side after Daud performs an overhead chop. Bringing her blade and circling around trying to keep him off a good balance. "I wonder how the Outsider could have even choose a mindless killer like you? Do you need another order to execute someone, or dare you act of your own accord?" 

A wry smile crosses her face as she continues to taunt him moving towards the tree behind her. "Or have you done that all along, do you enjoy bringing the destruction of the empire? My friends Jessamine, Lurk, Timish, and my sisters. Where you just against me this whole time." She's glad that Daud is following her away from her alter. 

She can see her statues are starting to pull their weight in the fight with the whalers, but still more than a few have been lost to their blades. 

Daud notices Delilah's distracted glance and immediately follows in hoping to press his advantage. Going in for a lunge he slices her arm she lets out a gasp involuntarily. Blood drips from her arm changing the colour of the flowers along her outfit to a deep red from their various monotone colours. Delilah berates herself and goes on a small counter-attack comprised of small quick attacks mostly with her blade but managing to sweep in with two attacks from her injured arm. 

Any blood that the flowers could not greedily drink up drip down to the ground, roots take hold and grow rapidly. Delilah backs up easily walking through the new grasping vines hungry for more blood. The vines hook themselves around Dauds feet as he tries to start a new attack against Delilah. 

"Daud while your specialty was death, mine is life. Mine is art and you are just too blind to see it." Delilah says as she moves in striking at Daud above his brow allowing blood to drip into his eyes. 

"I have always admired beauty you are just not it. I don't know whose way is more twisted, yours or the Outsiders. People knew not to trust him but you made people worship the ground you walk on, grasping to you or the idea of what you are." Daud unable to get out of the vines that are slowly starting to drag him into the stone below, tries to keep the conversation going until he can think of a way to kill the witch in front of him. 

Delilah looking at the vine knows she has some room with this whole affair, she lets out a small scoff and plays Dauds game. "I told them the truth, I am an artist who found the secrets of art that Sokolov wanted so badly." Delilah raises her arm and drops a bit more blood upon the ground, the vine responds rapidly wrapping around Daud. "What Sokolov or any of them would do for a painting like this," Delilah turns and motions to the painting of Emile in its swirl of colours behind her. 

He feels the vines start to gain strength, starting to his legs and fix them in place, he knows that he has to do something. Even if it just to fix one mistake. Even if it costs him his life. He knows he had one last incendiary bolt for his hand crossbow. 

Years of muscle memory and a bit of luck where it counts he turns and makes the shot. Raising his arm, a small click and the bolt flies towards the the altar, the glass breaks upon impact with the alter. Her materials, shells, lazurite, and Emily's hair all destroyed. 

"Daud! No!" Delilah turns and runs to her alter, already the aura of power fading from the surrounding ground. "Nothing, nothing left." 

Daud struggles to make out Delilahs' whisper. The sounds of fighting stop Daud realizes that her statues have won and had forced his whalers to return to their base. There is an eerie silence within the void, stillness. 

Minutes pass, but it felt like no time to Daud and an eternity to Delilah. She turns and moves to him, "I will not speak of your failure, but still you will not save her. You will watch her destruction with your final breath knowing how you could not do anything right. You leave a bloody mess wherever you go, and you killed overseers before but what happens when the rest of the city descends upon you. How then will you fair Daud?" Delilah says. Raising her arm and clenching her fist, the vines start to squeeze crushing Daud. 

Daud looks at the expression on Delilahs’ face, disdain. She knows that it is a setback but she will come back. Daud knows that the only thing to truly stop her is to put a blade through her. 

Daud clenches his hand and calls to one of his whalers. They appear in a puff of smoke, part of their uniform torn and Daud can hear haggard breath, it was someone who had just been here. The whalers assesses the situation and goes for the base of the vine on Dauds’ right hand side. Two strokes with his blade and the vine starts to shrivel, the whaler turns, and manages to barely block the swing from Delilah. 

Her face of disdain has evaporated and has been replaced with anger. "You! You dare continue to follow in his name. All he has done for you is given you a blade." Delilah shouts as she starts to swing wildly each swing moving closer and he swings becoming strokes. Truly a painter at work. 

The whaler walks around keeping Delilah's back to Daud, giving Daud a chance to free his blade. He quickly tries to make work of the crushing vines. A few awkward strikes and he can feel the vine starting to shrivel away, ripping himself free of the last bits of vines he starts his approach. 

Dried blood caked upon his sword, blending in with his uniform. Something broke when he killed the Empress, his will. He was tired of it all, the fights, the noise, everything. He had cut a swath through the streets, not for all of his life but now enough. 

Delilah easily catches up with the whaler feinting a side swipe with her weapon, using the temporary blind spot from the whalers goggles switches to an overhead chop. The whaler had no time to react to change, no chance to block, no way to blink away. He falls to the ground skull cracked and broken glass falling from his eye piece. 

"I won't be that easy to kill." Daud says grabbing a handful of Delilah's hair. He pulls her backwards breaking one of her heels keeping her off balance. He turns his head and sees the painting of Emily behind him by a few feet and continues to drag Delilah there. 

"I never expected you to be easy to kill, but I expected you to want to die." Delilah places her non broken stiletto into Daud feet after he turns his head back. Breaking from his grip going to claw at his face. 

Daud wheels himself around and accepts the other hit across his face. He hits her across the face just as he had done to the empress she stumbles towards the painting. Delilah raises her blade expecting an onslaught of weapon slashes, she is surprised to see that Daud is just waiting. 

"What is stopping you?" Daud asks his arms hanging at his side. 

"What do you mean by that?" Delilah is silently thankful for the respite. She can feel still the small trickle of blood on her arm mixing with the blood on her blade. 

"I have to stop you, what else could? The Outsider? No and by the time anyone else found out it would be far too late. I have too. The Outsider pits us against each other, who is next that we would face?" Daud asks steeling himself and reassuring himself that this is the right choice. 

"Do you really think that he pits us against each other?" Delilah asks moving the past few feet towards her painting as Daud advances. "We are all of our own mind when we make our choices. He only watches and makes guesses." 

"Based on what we have done? Our conservation a with him might be different." Daud has made up his mind. He talks to put her off of her guard to make this easy. 

Delilah can easily see through Daud's plan to make her mind focus elsewhere. Daud is a brute who needs direct motivation and directions, someone who needs a list to keep track. She is a free thinker and able to focus on not than one task at at time, her coven, her art, her devotion to the Outsider, and her plans. 

She laughs at Daud's approach but knows that if it comes to weapons alone she will be in trouble. Daud was a brute, but one who had honed his craft to near perfection. She takes one last step back and her back hits the tree, realization hits her. 

She played into his trap, so focused on his advance, she was thrown into this decaying situation. Salvaging what was left of the city, her dreams cut away from her. 

She smiles menacingly at Daud and knows it is her end, she plans not to go alone.

She slashes at Daud and he catches her arm and starts to wrench the blade out of her hand bending it backwards. She drops the weapon and gasps out as pain explodes through her abdomen she looks down and sees the bit of the blade protruding from her. Bringing her hand up she tries to rake her hands against Daud's neck. 

Her hands grip the back of his neck and she feels her strength fading. "You think you've seen the last of me?" She breaths out with Daud's bloody face a few feet from hers. 

She angrily looks at him as he coldly responds, "Yes." Daud digs the blade further in and another moment passes. The two held like statues each refusing to surrender, to let the other win. Time was on Daud's side, Delilah starts to falter her feet scrape against the blood that has pooled on the floor. Her head finally drops after another moment, barely to breath, barely able to see. No more feeling, she notices that Daud's face appears much above her and she loses focus. 

The world bounces the rushing noise of blood in her ears stops and she slowly lets out her last breath. 

She feels a pull on her flesh. Melting, pouring, swirling around and on her. Melted wax from candles long past, sculpting clay runoff encasing her, mixing paint colours adding their vibrancy to her paintings; to her. 

She feels life breathing into her body, moving with her floating through the void. Nothing supporting her, freely limitless. Was this death, glorious sensual feelings, everything wonderful that she had felt in her life bombarding her senses at once. 

She was not sure if she could make sound but from sounds of peace and harmony, quickly would turn to agony. She can feel a cage wrapping around her, enveloping her entirely. It persists, growing in heat and intensity, it felt like she was walking on a dark sun. 

She feels a stab in the centre of her being. Again, and again, pulsing through her. Rhythmically; one, two, one two, one-two, one-two. 

It feels like she can open her eyes, covered in different hues of blue, violets, and dark greys. She moves, it feels like she was trying to wipe her eyes clean. Covered in a thick canvas she claws at it suffocating. 

He claws to her freedom, inhaling and exhaling to a point where it becomes a subconscious act. 

Dusky light filters through boards. Dust chokes the air, and is caught in the light. She finally sees more of what was around her, actual canvas. She crawls away from her canvas prison, and tries to stand. 

She collapses back to her hands and knees, she pauses and sits down exhausted. She tries to take in all of the information flowing through her. She was alive. Screaming as she came into this world once again, she feels it in her lungs. Inspiration, it was all around her. 

She stills for a long time allowing for breath to fill her. Once she is ready she inspects herself, bare and flawless. Her skin smoothed to perfection, clean porcelain. She stands and feels the chill as it gently crosses her body. She crosses the medium sized room to a smaller adjacent room. She sees a large wardrobe and goes to it, inside are multiple outfits untouched by plague. 

Men's clothes, with initials sewed into the pocket. A, T. She lets out a laugh hearing her voice for the first time; hoarse, broken and dry, but her voice none the less. She laughs at the irony. 

"Timsh, it appears you had one more use after all." 

She dons some of the fine clothes, and walks out to the main rooms once again. She grabs a corner of the canvas and gingerly grabs it straightening it out, the one side was still Timsh though it seemed to be missing much of the paint in the centre. 

The other side was a mystery of what it was supposed to be, if she hadn't had been the one to have painted it. It was originally a painting of herself, it was the first self portrait that she had made and there was only one other. She had lived through her art. She had always known that she could have brought a half-life to her works but this was something different. She had only made so many paintings and had put all of her heart into it, but her portraits had taken part of her soul. She now knows that it was more the than she thought. 

Time has passed a layer of dust covers most of the surfaces, dust circles can be spotted. The estate was plundered and desiccated, this room had one of the most secure locks and was left to be in peace. 

She sees the size of the frame on the ground and guesses that the only reason that the painting was safe was its size and rumours that Timsh had spread about it. 

None of that mattered. She had made it back and time had passed. She was not sure how much but she still had her plan. She would be the one to rule the Isles, she would just have to take a different approach. 

Nothing would be safe, and anyone that would get in her way even if it was Daud again. He humbled her, she would not under-estimate her opponents again. No one was safe, even if she had to cut a swath through Dunwall and the Isles. She would, nothing will deter her from her throne, robbed by Emily the first. 

"Even if it is later than expected, Dunwall will be on its knees welcoming me. Delilah the first." She says her voice returning in strength, and a wicked grin to match her wicked thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this. This is for high chaos 2016. If you see any problems with the writing please let me know I only want to improve for all of you. (Sorry for Canadian spelling)


End file.
